


The Desert's Sad Dream

by The_Exile



Category: Stella Glow
Genre: Community: 40fandoms, Dream Magic, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Spoilers, evil cakes that eat people, magic control issues, suicide ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-17
Updated: 2017-06-17
Packaged: 2018-11-15 06:49:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11225559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Exile/pseuds/The_Exile
Summary: Mordimort still finds it difficult to control her magic when she's asleep. She also finds it difficult to control her sleep. The two do not make for a good combination.





	The Desert's Sad Dream

She woke up back in the ruins of Kashmistan and knew that she had done it again.

She wasn't even supposed to be asleep. It was midday and she remembered going for a walk to Lambert's famous cafe for one of their delicious cakes and a nice strong cup of Earl Grey that might keep her awake for more than five minutes. She had promised Alto that she would go and fetch food for herself like a normal person and not animate servants out of mud to bring it back to her. The leader had promised that people wouldn't be so scared of her if she appeared outside more and actually talked to them, rather than conducting business entirely through the blank-eyed clay dolls who weren't intelligent enough to walk around someone who accidentally stepped in their path. She might also feel less lethargic and fall asleep in the middle of the day less often if she got some exercise.

At least, that was the theory. It had worked a little but it wasn't going to solve the real problem. When your magic involved your dreams, when sleep was integral to how your powers worked, you never really got normal sleep, the sort that had no purpose other than to allow you to rest and for your mind to mull over the events of the day. There was always something else happening, or you needed to make sure something didn't happen, which was even more exhausting than letting it happen but at least it meant that your nightmares weren't coming to life and running amok every time you dozed off. 

With some of the things she had experienced in her lifetime, the sort of nightmares she had were a really bad idea to let out into the world. Like now, when she had accidentally converted an entire district of the Royal Capital into the burning, wartorn ruin of a long-forgotten desert town, infested with the monsters that represented her darkest emotions, secret desires and negative thoughts made manifest. Hideous ogres, creeping slimes and chittering, bow-wielding goblins all swarmed through the streets, terrorising the guards. The City Watch had already begun evacuating the civilians, led by the rest of the reserves of her unit, who hadn't been chosen to go off on the expedition led by Alto this time. She wished she could help as well but it felt as though her thoughts were swimming through treacle. She couldn't even move, her body was taking so long to respond. From experience, she knew that she wasn't really awake or asleep, dreaming or witnessing reality - not from her own perspective, at least. All she could really do is control her thoughts enough to keep the nightmare from getting any worse, keep the illusion stable enough that it didn't collapse and cause damage to anybody trapped inside it.

That task in itself was even harder work than it sounded. She wasn't sure how it had gotten this bad. She thought she was improving, between the tuning sessions, the more mundane counselling and patient guidance of everyone in the unit. Some wounds took time to heal but she had hoped she would at least reach the point where she didn't need to be afraid that she would endanger everyone just by sleeping. 

As for deliberately not sleeping, she hadn't tried it again since the first time. The dreams that came with dropping from exhaustion were much, much worse than a controlled sleep.

Some days she wondered what would happen if she just went to sleep forever... 

No, she shook that thought out of her head the second she felt it try and settle. That deep a level of despair would only bring more powerful demons to life, and besides, her friends still needed her. She was the Earth Witch and there were very important things that only she could do. While the situation she had caused wasn't good, it also wasn't anything that the guards and her friends couldn't handle, so long as she stopped it from getting any worse. 

For some reason, the situation made her think about cakes. 

Specifically, she wondered if people who worked at the cafe felt like this; if you just got sick of cakes when you worked with them all all day, when you saw hundreds of failed cakes as well as the successful end products, when you associated cakes with stress and deadlines and people blaming you for everything that went wrong. She couldn't imagine anyone feeling the same way about cakes as she did about sleep some days, not really, but she could at least see in theory how it might happen.

More importantly, her mind was now filled with thoughts of cakes. The burning rubble was gradually turning into tables and chairs with floral tablecloths and china tea sets, silver cutlery and tall stands full of cupcakes. The monsters were turning into waiters in butler uniforms, who all looked like Klaus for some reason. Okay, so some of the waiters were still attacking the guards, as were some of the cakes, but it was an improvement. 

Now she could at least hold out until Alto came to wake her up again.


End file.
